now that you
was sweet on your path-master when folks over to Spencers say she's
sweet on Dan McCloud--"

"It's a lie!" roared young Byram.

"Is it?" asked the warden, with interest. "He's a good-lookin' chap, an'
folks say--"

"It's a damn _lie_!" yelled Byram, "an' you can tell them folks that I
say so. She don't know Dan McCloud to speak to him, an' he's that
besotted with rum half the time that if he spoke to her she'd die o'
fright, for all his good looks."

"Well, well," said the game-warden, soothingly; "I guess he ain't no
account nohow, an' it's jest as well that we ketch him with them birds
an' run him off to jail or acrost them mountains yonder."

"I don't care where he is as long as I git my tax," muttered Byram.

But he _did_ care. At the irresponsible suggestion of the gossiping
game-warden a demon of jealousy had arisen within him. Was it true that
Dan McCloud had cast his sodden eyes on Ellie Elton? If it were true,
was the girl aware of it? Perhaps she had even exchanged words with the
young man, for McCloud was a gentleman's son and could make himself
agreeable when he chose, and he could appear strangely at ease in his
ragged clothes--nay, even attractive.

All Foxville hated him; he was not one of them; if he had been, perhaps
they could have found something to forgive in his excesses and drunken
recklessness.

But, though with them, he was not of them; he came from the
city--Albany; he had been educated at Princeton College; he neither
thought, spoke, nor carried himself as they did. Even in his darkest
hours he never condescended to their society, nor, drunk as he was,
would he permit any familiarities from the inhabitants.

Byram, who had been to an agricultural college, and who, on his return
to Foxville had promptly relapsed into the hideous dialect which he had
imbibed with his mother's milk, never forgave the contempt with which
McCloud had received his advances, nor that young man's amused
repudiation of the relationship which Byram had ventured to recall.

So it came about that Byram at length agreed to aid the game-warden in
his lawful quest for the ice-box, and he believed sincerely that it was
love of law and duty which prompted him.

But their quest was fruitless; McCloud met them at the gate with a
repeating-rifle, knocked the game-warden down, took away his revolver,
and laughed at Byram, who stood awkwardly apart, dazed by the
business-like rapidity of the operation.